The email accused me of disturbing teenagers and contacting donors at their homes.
It included the phrase emotional instability and suggested that the depot should review my access to commercial vehicles.
I felt my face heat up.
“That’s a serious accusation,” I said.
“It is.”
“What do you want me to do?”
Tasha slid a form toward me.
“Tell the truth and bring whatever records you have.”
I showed her the voicemail in which Celeste claimed to know my supervisor.
Tasha listened twice, then turned the phone face down.
“She thinks my job is to scare you,” she said.
“My job is to keep the buses safe, and you have never given me reason to doubt your work.”
For the first time in days, I breathed all the way in.
Then she added a warning I couldn’t ignore.
“That doesn’t mean she can’t make life difficult while this gets sorted out.”
I did not tell Sophie about the email that day.
I was tired of watching her take responsibility for decisions adults had made around her.
Instead I attended her orchestra rehearsal and sat in the back row with other parents balancing backpacks and half-finished coffees.
Mrs. Paredes had arranged a short program for a community concert.
Sophie played second violin on a piece she did not particularly love.
Lila sat across the semicircle, staring fiercely at her sheet music.
When the rehearsal ended, Celeste appeared near the stage doors carrying a bouquet.
She had not attended the rehearsal itself.
She walked directly to Mrs. Paredes and announced that several donors wanted Lila to lead the closing number.
Mrs. Paredes kept stacking chairs.
“The program has been approved,” she said.
“Programs change.”
“Not because somebody walks in holding flowers.”
Celeste’s face tightened.
“You’re being hostile to a young musician.”
Mrs. Paredes turned to her.
“No, I’m setting a boundary with an adult.”
Parents nearby stopped talking.
Lila stood frozen with her violin case in both hands.
For a moment I thought Celeste would leave.
Instead she looked over Mrs. Paredes’s shoulder and found me.
“This has all become very ugly,” she said.
“Yes,” I answered.
“It has.”
Outside the school Lila’s mother, Dana, caught up with me beneath the awning.
She looked as though she had not slept well in weeks.
“Marcus told me you called,” she said.
“I hope I didn’t make things harder for you.”
“Things were already hard.”
Dana explained that Celeste had paid several years of Lila’s lessons after Marcus’s medical bills overwhelmed them.
